Sam Trethewey: Milford Asset Management Portfolio Manager on the current state of the 2025 stock market

It's a big week for the New Zealand stock market, and one expert is taking a look at the highest performers.

As results reporting continues, some companies are bringing in more for investors than others.

Milford Asset Management's Sam Trethewey explains further.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 2 (00:56):
Approaching the numbers and getting the results, reach with the business,
ower and mass insurance and investment and screw your wealth,
protect your future News.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Talks, b six twenty three on News Talks edb. Sam
Trithawi is with US, He's with Milford Asset Management.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Good evening, good ending Right.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Firstly, how would you summarize earning season? What companies were
you high as, what were your lowse.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
I think that earning season overall really confirmed what was
not perhaps not a surprise for most at the second
half of last year was a very tough period for
New Zealand companies and within the results reported you could
see impacts of a weak consumer, not dramatically worse than prior,
but certainly not improving. And on the back of it
there was a big step up in corporates taking a

(01:42):
much more serious approach to cost cutting. Probably one of
the positives was really around the labor pressures that if
you went back to three years ago, a lot of
CEO is one of the top concerns was finding staff
or the availability of labor. That has now flipped the
other way. So overall, not dramatically worse than expected, but

(02:03):
definitely subdued in terms of highlights and lowlights. I think
what was former A two sorry, what was the former
market Darling A two of milk That was a clear
standout stock up thirty seven percent as the company really
got its mojo back, taking material share in the Chinese
and for forming the market, and lowlights Spark in Royman Healthcare. Really,

(02:24):
what's a soft trading update in a large one billion
dollar capital race?

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah? Which of those two things was more of a
surprise to you? Because we know that Spark's been in
trouble for a week while, so getting that news perhaps
wasn't It wasn't as surprising as the Ryman equity raise.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, No, I I agree. I think it's the Rhyman
rays that that would have surprised investors the most. The
Spark result well clearly not great, and you know there
were hens rounds. I guess loss of control of the
cost base from management. It follows several soft trading updates
from the company over the last year or so. But
for Ryman, I think that really surprised in two ways.

(03:03):
So firstly that trading update that they put out sales
of units within their villages. We're tracking at sixty percent
of the prior year over the last week so over
the last few weeks, so a big step down there.
And secondly, if you'd asked most investors who follow the
company closely, does Ryan Ryman need more cash? I think

(03:23):
the answer would have been something like potentially in the future,
but nothing is pressing at this stage after they did
step up and raise new equity in an emergency way
two years ago. So that means that the raising was
priced a heavy discount and had a pretty material fly
on impact to the wider market as investors look to
fund it.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Sam, this has obviously not been a great reporting season
for US for the half year. How far off peak
bad news do you think we are?

Speaker 3 (03:52):
I think the fact that corporatings were subdued but not
maturely worse suggests that yes, we potentially are at peak
bad news or the trough of the economic cycle. The
real question facing investors is really down downto and has
been prolonged so far. And then secondly, what recovery path

(04:14):
will we follow? So management teams from large companies just
hope of or optimism of recovery in the second half
of the year. And yes they are taking cost out
much more seriously, but I'll be watching the consumer closely
for signs of that strong demand, to get an indication
of that pace of recovery. So, when will we actually
see lower mortgage rates start to lift consumer spending more

(04:38):
materially than what's happened so far.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Hopefully soon, Sam, Thank you for that Sam Truth. We
Milford Asset Management with the look back at reporting season.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
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